chitownsportsfan

Can't make any complaints about the bullpen except for Masset being on the big club. Octavio, Boone, Thornton Jenks and Linebrink have been rock solid.

Once again Sox get ahead early and have great pitching and mostly great defense. Jenks pretty much looking unhittable against a bad Baltimore lineup. No reason the Sox shouldn't continue to beat this team.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Apr 16, 2008 -> 07:40 PM) I actually not ready to write Contreras off yet. He doesn't have the 95 MPH fastball and 87 MPH splitter anymore, but he's still about a league average #3 or #4 starter, and he's pitched well in pretty much every clutch situation put forth at him. If he can stay healthy or if the Sox can keep him rested well enough throughout the year, he'll be just fine, and that I have no doubt about. Well there you have it! Great performance by the Count tonight. He had his fastball in the 92MPH range even into the 7th (Jenks at 94-95), and had great command and movement on his pitches. If he can just be league average and stay healthy it will be a huge boost to the pitching staff.

QUOTE (jackie hayes @ Apr 16, 2008 -> 11:19 AM) The conversation started with pr, and really that's all I'd want Owens for. I agree it's minimal, but that's the reason it's being discussed. Owens has had a better obp in the majors, but it's still not good, and he has zero power. Since we're talking about guys with pretty small MLB track records, I think it's useful to look at what they've done in the minors. Anderson's MiLB obp is .361, Owens's is .362. Anderson obviously has much better power. So I don't think they're really all that close in terms of ceiling. I'm well aware of how bad Anderson was in 2006. But there's no truth to the idea that Owens was at least serviceable last year. Anderson's ops+ in 2006 was 65, Owens's in 2007 was 67. They both royally sucked. Anderson's hasn't approached his ceiling, sure. But neither has Owens. At least, for his sake, I hope he hasn't. Good post. I'll just add that somehow for the first half of 2006 BA's defense singlehandedly made him a worthwhile player, even while having an OPS south of .700. And right, there is no question that Anderson is the better player now and has more upside. Owens is a career minor leaguer or 4th outfielder on a bad team sort of player. He's fast, but not very good at baseball. I still think Anderson got s***-canned by the organization unfairly (looking at you Ozzie), you give him another full season and I think he'd be much improved, at least OPS+ around 90 with good defense. That's an adequate CF for the price.

What happened 3 years ago in the playoffs should have zero influence on signings going forward. This team should get younger where they can, and one of those spots is 3B. That said, I came into this thread to voice my concern about how bad Contreras is looking. Is he hurt? Just sucks? I think he's washed up personally. I'm glad for that great half season or so he gave us, but it's time to show him the door if there is a move to be made at the deadline or sooner.

QUOTE (DBAH0 @ Apr 15, 2008 -> 11:23 PM) Great to see Danksy rebound after his last start. Quentin comes through again. Even though the guy hasn't hit well lately, if he stays in the lineup, he's capable of 100RBI's this season IMHO. Q needs to get at least 550 PA this season. He's clearly a talanted player who has been held back by health problems. With no other good options, he's more than worth taking a risk on. I like his approach at the plate (great patience and solid power) and he has good range and a strong arm as well. Really a solid all around player when healthy.

Man a Fields/Thome platoon sounds pretty intriguing.

QUOTE (greasywheels121 @ Apr 15, 2008 -> 10:07 PM) YES. Good stuff; my best friend growing up was a Griffey fan while I was THE Frank fan. I don't know what that has to do with anything, but I felt like sharing. So deal. Also, YES. I was always a Frank fan growing up but I remember reading in a card magazine that Griffey loved playing video games online is his spare time -- so he was cool too. Hell of a player too. I remember a game I went to with my summer league team in MI back at old Tiger stadium vs the Mariners. We had terrible seats like way back in the lower deck CF but we moved down right by Griffee as nobody was there. Watching him that close, even for one game, was fun. He made a lot of plays.

Yes, he's the best player in the history of the team and one of the 30 best sluggers of all time. He made watching Sox baseball fun through many of our formative years and was the most feared and respected hitter in the game for a 2-3 year period. Unlike Gary Sheffield (looking at you Joe Morgan) , he was also the best hitter during those years.

QUOTE (Capn12 @ Apr 14, 2008 -> 01:07 PM) And again, a million times over, if we're playing Uribe because we need him to be hitting .300, etc, we have a bigger problem at hand. Uribe is in the lineup because he is bar none, the best option we have at second base. Again I ask, please look past the "BAvg" stat in the morning newspapers. Yea, Uribe is the best healthy 2nd base option we have right now. The off-season griping I did about this fact is useless now. The best thing right now is to role with Uribe at least until mid-summer when he could be packaged and Richar is fully healthy.

QUOTE (robinventura23 @ Apr 14, 2008 -> 11:56 AM) If there is anything that the team is lacking right now it's speed. I wouldn't mind seeing Owens coming off the bench late in the game as a PR. Also, Ramirez serves no purpose on the bench. He should go down to Charlotte for some seasoning. QFT

I like Young and I like my "rich man's Mike Cameron" comparison. Good deal for the Diamondbacks. Now, if they would just bat this guy 5th or 6th for God's sake.

Frank is such a great player and a great guy. I love rooting for this guy. A boyhood hero of mine, he's never come within a wiff of 'roids or PEDs. A great role model for kids and a class act to boot. Sure, he can be petulant and aloof (very different from arrogant), and he lost some of his prime years to injury, but is there another White Sox who was ever more feared in his prime? Who was ever a better hitter? The numbers he put up in the 90's without roids will stand the test of time. He is one of the 30 greatest hitters of all time. I wish the Big Hurt well this year and can't wait until he takes his rightful place in Cooperstown!

This is a HUGE story in NYC. The post actually ran a front page full cover story about it on Friday, and when the story broke it was also front page, although it was just a sidebar. I don't think you can underestimate how much people love baseball on the east coast. Coming from the midwest it's been a great shock. Baseball is king here and even the Giants' championship keeps football a very distant 2nd. Today I was playing ultimate frisbee in prospect park and like 3-4 of the guys on my team got into a very in depth conversatino about the mets and phillies this year. It's so great to see baseball so loved. s***, you can't swing a dead cat in NYC without hitting someone in a Mets or Yankees cap.

QUOTE (Balta1701 @ Apr 13, 2008 -> 10:31 PM) Ugh, stop talking about trading away the starting 3rd baseman, a Boras client in the last year of his deal, a player with a bad back and on the wrong side of 30, a player with a career OPS+ below 100, a player whose replacement in AAA has shown he has excellent big league power and can play a competent 3B, for the team with the best record in the AL 1/12 into the season. Fixed.

QUOTE (witesoxfan @ Apr 13, 2008 -> 05:36 PM) FOR THE LAST f***ING TIME, IT'S CHRIS YOUNG I don't understand people that think that trade was a clear cut win for either team. At this point the Sox have won, 5 years from now things may look very different. I think it was a "meh" trade. I'm much more upset with the Garland trade, but whatevs, water under the bridge right now. Great game today! I had the Masters muted and the White Sox game on internet stream, other than Tiger not making a real run it was a great afternoon of sports. Crede is hopefully getting quite a few looksies now from teams around the league, I pray that he can somehow maintain this hot streak long enough to get a decent offer in June or July. That way we can get some minor league or bullpen help and have Fields ready to plug right in and not miss a beat. Swisher and Quentin continue to show the value of walks over speed (as attributes to look for I'd take good eye over speed every time). This team in 2005 and 2006 was a 3 run homer team and they are again. This time though they have a few more guys (Swisher, Quentin, Thome) that can really draw some walks in addition to hitting some bombs.

With this team's middle of the order there is no need to be wasting outs on the basebaths. I'd like to see this team play solid 1st to 3rd baseball and not make needless outs on the basepaths. When healthy, Swisher, Dye, Kong, Thome, Crede and Quentin all are capable of driving in runners from 1st with doubles and home runs.

Amazing how energy returns when you've got 3 solid MLB outfielders playing everyday instead of 2 who should be out of baseball.

QUOTE (lostfan @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 09:51 AM) Uribe isn't giving me any reasons to want to bench him right now, but Richar could provide the same offensive production as Uribe, probably better. Long-term, we should still be looking at Richar. It makes zero sense not to. Ideally I'd like to see Richar do an extended rehab in Charlotte (make sure he gets his PA) and then comes up after the deadline (where hopefully Uribe and/or Crede have been traded for pitching help and/or prospects) and either gets in the lineup 2-3 times a week as a utility player or is the outright everyday 2B. Next year he goes into camp the starting 2B unless he completely flops or a better option suddenly comes around. I still think Richar can be a productive player for the Sox and we should have him in the plans for sure.

Quentin's AAA numbers suggest that he's going to get on base at around a .365 clip and slug around .465. From watching him in the field he looks to be a + baserunner (in smarts and speed combined) and also to have a great arm and passable range in either corner. He's also cheap and young -- what's not to like? Only the injury history: hopefully he can stay healthy and give us a good young corner run producing threat.

QUOTE (YASNY @ Apr 8, 2008 -> 12:19 AM) But Joe Crede is a below average third baseman. Eh, at this point him and Fields are probably going to give about the same over 162 games in total value. I just hope that Crede has a great start and Fields tears up Charlotte so we have a good problem on our hands.

Quentin, Swisher and Dye means we actually have 3 above average players (when healthy for Dye and Quentin) capable of driving an offense from the outfield spots. Swisher is batting leadoff and eating up the PAs. Floyd and Danks looked great first time through.

QUOTE(elrockinMT @ Apr 6, 2008 -> 11:08 PM) This was a great game to watch on ESP2HD. five double plays turned by the Sox squished them Tigers Yea, I bought my HDTV last August and missed most of the season. This year I've added the surround sound. It's a real difference from MLB.TV on my 19" cheapo lcd! The plays with the bat breaking were awesome, you could see all the splinters flying. I really hate the broadcast crew but the production on ESPN is usual pretty good in the presentation, which makes a real difference in HD. Great win tonight and I hope Ozzie doesn't somehow now bench Quentin for that drop. This guy is a player! MB was the man tonight, breaking all kinds of bats. Great movement and control.

QUOTE(effectivelywild @ Apr 5, 2008 -> 05:09 PM) Well, hell, of course. I would love it if he could do that. I mean, his average would jump, and his on base percentage and slugging and virtually all of his stats would, all things being equal, go up as well. In fact, if he could just replace every one of those strikeouts with a home run, he'd be one of the better hitting third basemen of all time. But see, that's the problem with the ol' "well, if he'd just strike out less some of those AB's would be hits" argument. You're essentially saying "gee, I wish he'd have a higher BA." And the argument hinges on another caveat---that if Fields changed his approach and mechanics to strike out less, it could, on the other hand, lead to him taking less walks or even (gasp!) hitting for less power as he starts taking more conservative swings. So it's sort of like me saying "Gee, I just wish Fields was a better hitter" A more fair comparison, then, is trying to figure out the value of all those potentially productive outs vs. the strikeout. And I'm pretty sure that I've read that the value of those potential productive outs is mostly done away with the additional DP's he'd hit into. I think that over the course of a full season, the value of "productive outs vs. KO's for a hitter" is about 1 run, though I'd have to find the numbers. If you have others that contradict me, I'd love to be better informed. Long story short, I'm pretty sure the end result is that all outs are more or less equal, from a run scoring standpoint. Pretty much says it all here. Look, everyone is happy when productive outs happen. Hell, some players are good productive out players. But there is a reason that when the coaches ask the players to "hit one to first, one to 2nd, one to 3rd, one in the gap, flyout to right, etc" in practice about 2 out of the team actually do it well. It's a f***ing great skill to be able to have such great bat control. But it's also a great skill to hit 2-1 fastballs over the fence in left -- something Fields does very well. Fields over Crede is an obvious decision.

We are 5 games in and you are talking s***? Granted, somehow by blind luck we have Quentin in the lineup, the bulllpen pitching lights out, and the back of the rotation holding their own -- but hold off on the s*** talk at least until we are out of May. Quite a bit will still have to go right (including the things I mentioned above) before this team competes for a playoff spot. I have my fingers crossed. I"m also realistic though. At beast this is a 85 win team that will tease all summer long. Hopefully we have some reasons to cheer (quentin, danks, fields, etc) before the year is up.